Anyone see this?

A terrified driver told yesterday how she was shunted sideways by a giant tanker for up to a mile along a busy motorway.

Shaken Rona Williams, 31, thought she was a goner after her blue Renault Clio became wedged under the 18-wheeler’s front bumper at 60mph.

She wrestled with the steering wheel, yanked on her handbrake, beeped her horn and flashed her hazard lights.

But the trucker ploughed on – totally unaware she was trapped out of sight beneath his cab.

Finally Rona grabbed her mobile phone from her handbag and dialled 999. She yelled at the operator: “I’m going to die, I’m going to die! Can you do something?”

Suddenly the lorry driver realised there was a problem as his huge vehicle began to lurch from side to side.

Rona, a vet from York who had been tootling along the M1 at 8.30am to her surgery in Garforth, near Leeds, said: “He finally twigged and managed to manoeuvre us onto the hard shoulder. He backed up to release my car, got out and opened my door to check I was okay.

"He even asked if I thought he needed to hang around! I told him he did because I’d called the police.

“They were there in minutes but because I wasn’t injured they just helped exchange our insurance details. I wasn’t physically hurt but I was in complete shock.”

It was taken by a passenger in another car who can be heard yelling: “He hasn’t even seen it!”

The footage is so dramatic some viewers claimed it must have been faked. But West Yorkshire Police have announced they are re-investigating the hair-raising shunt on January 13.

After being tracked down by the Mirror, Rona told how her normally uneventful 30-minute commute to work turned into a nightmare.

She said: “I was aware of the tanker. We had been on the road together for a while and he was in the middle lane. The next thing I know I’m stuck to the front of his lorry. I’ve no idea how but I didn’t deviate from my path.

“I just felt a knock and then I was travelling sideways. I don’t know how long for – but it felt like forever.

“I was terrified the tanker was going to crash me into the central reservation, and that would be that.”

Rona, whose husband Rob, 32, is also a vet, added: “I’ve seen the footage and the trucker seems to be going along like nothing has happened – and that’s exactly what it felt like.”

Her £6,000 Clio was towed to a garage near Leeds. Its wheels have been worn away by friction and one side is badly dented. But Rona said: “All things considered it came out of it pretty well. It’s a tough little car.”

The tanker is owned by Arclid Transport, based in Sandbach, Cheshire. The driver has been suspended from duty pending further inquiries

Ta TW for the sig.

TK TrooperLifer

Posts : 1541Join date : 2009-08-20Age : 42Location : Scouseland

Subject: Re: Anyone see this? Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:38 am

Ye saw this yesterday. How the hell can you not know there is a car there, surely the rims scraping the road would create enough noise. Should be a banned for life